The performance „From the unspoken between feet and head – in conversation with Alfredo Jaar“ was located in front of the Museo de la memoria and as temporary part of Alfredo Jaars installation „La Geometría de la Conciencia“. „La Geometría de la Conciencia“ leads in the underground of the museums building and creates a different space, a space that suggests a meditation on light and darkness, sensory and knowledge. A metaphor that evokes the presence and absence at the same time, triggering a series of associations and thoughts focusing on the issue of presence, disappearance and memory. 500 silhouettes, all recognizable and identifiable, appear and disappear in the work, a large proportion of them correspond to the disappeared, but others are living people.The installation works with the suffery by all because of the crimes committed during the dictatorship in Chile. It refers to the loss of the country and opens to the universal human experience of death, disappearance, memory and presence.

Before flying to Chile I came across the sentence: „Trataron de enterrarmos, pero no sabian que eramos semillas.“ – „They tried to burry us, they didn’t know we were seeds.“ which I took as a starting and reference point for this performance. For me it shows perfectly the will, but also the poetic quality of force to fight and free human values. In Mexico this sentence is directly connected to the students who recently disappeared, highly actual and also clearly connected to the extremely violent policy during the dictatorhshp in Chile.

 

But still nowadays, children and adults disappear without any sign, any trace. In the museo de la memoria and surrounded by these strong and heavy weight of temporary history, I was seeking for an optimistic and positive view, for something light and even playfull. I’m still impressed by Chilean poetry, the warm and passionate will to live and die. This is what I took from the sentence „They tried to burry us, they didn’t know we were seeds.“ I tried to translate it in a visual and atmospheric response which starts from heaviness, but turns into something light and playfull, in something which probably gives hope and braveness to go on. So, here I also feel the perfect response to Alfredo Jaars installation „La Geometría de la Conciencia“, universal human experiences of disapearance, appearance, light and darkness.